Correagh garden

Correagh, a charming old bluestone house near Hamilton in western Victoria, holds a special place in the heart of its owner. Wes Rogers, whose father bought the property in the 1960s, spent his childhood and early adult years at Correagh, was married on the verandah and, after an interval of a few years, returned with his wife Cassie and their two children — Phoebe, now 18, and Sebastian, 15. He loves the property, too, for its historic associations with the district, its atmosphere of untouched simplicity and its extensive garden.

“This is one of the oldest surviving residences in the Hamilton district and it’s unusually intact,” Wes says. “It was built for Cuthbert Fetherstonhaugh, an Anglo-Irishman who built the house in about 1855 after he became the police magistrate at Hamilton.” Almost at the centre of the 36-hectare property, the single-storey house sits on a low rise with views to the north-east. French windows open from the main rooms to the verandah and the view — lawns shaded by trees both mature and more recently-planted, then beyond the fence across lush paddocks to the angular outline of the Grampian Mountains. The Rogers have added a verandah on the western side, connecting it to an old covered walkway that links the once-detached kitchen wing to the house. The walkway is now an informal hall and back door, where the family’s coats, assorted boots and dog leads find a home.

The 19th-century kitchen has been transformed into Wes’s library and study; this is where he keeps his local history collection, in particular books with connections to the Fetherstonhaugh family. “I found the obituary of one of Cuthbert’s daughters, Adelaide, in the Hamilton Spectator,” he says. “The writer said that in Adelaide’s time, the house was redolent with the fragrance of roses.” There are still roses at Correagh though little remains of the original garden; however, it’s not hard to picture how it would have been planted. “The garden probably looked marvellous in the 1880s Wes says. “Cuthbert was retired by then — he died in 1892 — and was president of the Hamilton Horticultural Society through that period, so I imagine he spent a lot of time in the garden. That’s possibly when he planted the lovely bank of elms that today shelter the house from the south-west wind.” Cuthbert did not labour alone. There was a full-time gardener to look after the front ornamental section — enclosed by a long-gone hawthorn hedge — and a productive vegetable layout with fruit trees at the back. A pear tree and a fig are two remnants and the Rogers have reinstated the orchard and planted new trees.

“It’s a lovely garden space,” Wes says. “And we love eating fresh apples, nectarines and pears.” There have been subtractions as well as additions. “Someone, possibly Cuthbert, planted two bunya pines on either side of the front door. Of course, back then they had no idea of how enormous the bunyas would get. The first one was taken out in the late 1980s and I removed the remaining one a couple of years ago. It was a magnificent tree but just in the wrong place — I was worried it would fall on the house.”

Wes has slowly edited out a lot of “scruffy stuff”, in particular plants that barely survived the drought: “I wanted to open up the house to the landscape and emphasis Correagh’s place in it.” Nevertheless, he has been keen to plant some ‘posterity’ trees such as a horse chestnut and a red oak, although this time further away from the house.

West of the main building are the stables that retain some of the original stone floors, and stalls with a feed loft above. However, this is far from a museum piece — Wes is a keen rider and there are several horses grazing in the paddocks beyond the garden. “I find it fascinating to think of Cuthbert with his garden, his books, his horse racing and hunting. He must have been a typical Anglo-Irish gentleman — and, can you believe it, he still holds the Australian record for shooting the most snipe in a season!”

It’s clear that Wes much admires this cultured and sporting pioneer family. For the Rogers, Correagh is the base for a happy 21st-century lifestyle while saluting its historic past. “But nowadays it’s also about connecting with the wider landscape,” Wes says. “We appreciate the grand vista as well as the domestic one.”

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